Because this was no dime novel, I could also hope the shootout might not occur. I’ve been led to understand Eastern folks believe that in the territories, gunfighters fall in every direction, every day.
It doesn’t even happen like that in Dodge City. While guns do speak louder than words, and most men carry guns, most men also prefer not to die, so guns tend to stay in holsters when men are sober. When whiskey blinds them to the prospects of easy death, their accuracy tends to diminish as well.
Still, I wasn’t about to hope too strongly that their guns would not be drawn in the next few minutes. Unfortunately, because so few men will risk a gunfight, the rare ones who make it a profession are that much more dangerous. And they stop at nothing to ensure they’ll be standing when the gunsmoke drifts away.
Men like Jim Hickok, who’s taken to introducing himself as Wild Bill ever since Abilene in ‘71, where as marshal he shot a troublesome drunk in the back and accidently killed one of his own deputies, and is as nasty a piece of work as you’ll find.
Tie-down men will do anything to get a jump, and rarely hesitate at shooting a man from the side, behind or from a darkened doorway — using rigged holsters, sleeve derringers or boot guns when more is neede than a straightforward Colt.
Those habits, however, aren’t the real reason to fear a tie-down man. Any gun-carrying cowpuncher could learn to fight in the same manner. What really sets a tie-down man apart is the unlearnable — how to kill another man without hesitation or remorse.
John Wesley Hardin comes to mind. I’d crossed his trail a couple times during my Texas wanderings, and he’s caused more than his share of gossip in the saloons, jail offices, bunkhouses and hideouts where cowboys and other gunfighters tend to congregate. At age eleven, it was rumored, Hardin stabbed another boy in the chest and back during a fist fight; he only got worse when he got his guns. At age fifteen he killed a former slave, then shot to death from ambush all three soldiers sent to bring him in for the slave’s murder. That was ’68.
The deaths didn’t stop there, not for a man who once shot and killed a man for snoring in a hotel room next door.
Hardin was eighteen, already with a dozen notches on his gun handle in September of ’71, when he approached two lawmen in Smiley who had been searching that town for him. The way I heard it, Hardin walked up to them as they were eating crackers and cheese in a general store. He asked the unsuspecting pair if they knew Hardin. When they replied that they had never seen him but certainly intended to arrest him, Hardin drew his gun, declared they were seeing him now, then emptied his gun in their faces.
The only defense against a professional gunman like Hardin is to avoid him, or be prepared to meet him beyond the line of decency, where he waits, and hope if you survive, you’re still the same man inside.
I took a breath and pushed through the saloon doors.
Tie-down men.
They remained sitting as I walked inside.
I did not like that.
In something like this, give me for an opponent someone goosey, someone so nervous that he’ll jump and turn at the slightest noise, even though all he needs to do is lift his head and look into the mirror to see the entire saloon from his bar stool.
These men looked into the mirror.
Suzanne had not entered with me. I’d left her on the sidewalk in front of my office, holding the front door key for the arrival of the Chinaman and the preacher’s lunch.
I kept my right hand well clear of my holster as I walked to the saloon bar. I had no intention of forcing them into something I’d regret more than they would.
Inside here wasn’t much different from any other saloon. Behind the bar was that large mirror and rows and rows of bottles. The other walls held life-size paintings, mainly of women dressed to catch a chill no matter how warm the evening, and posed even less respectably than they were dressed. Unlit kerosene lamps hung from the ceiling. Sawdust covered the floor, to soak up spilled beer or tobacco juice that didn’t hit the spittoons. Draw in a breath, and you had your choice of the reek of smoke, liquor, horse liniment, tobacco juice or sweat.
A few bleary-eyed men guarded a few poker chips on a table to my right. Early afternoon is not the usual time for a high-stakes game; later more chips would be in play and the men would have been hunched forward in tension instead of watching me with still heads.
The piano playing did not start till after sun down and most of the dance girls would be taking a nap, so there was very little noise to break the sound of my boots slapping against the wood floor on my approach.
None of the four men moved as I walked past their stools. Each had a shot glass of whiskey in front of them.
I did nothing except lean on the corner of the saloon bar.
“Afternoon, Samuel.” The bartender — medium-sized, pot-bellied and sporting mutton chop whiskers — had a nervous edge in his voice and he wiped his hands against his apron repeatedly. I appreciated the fact that he had not called me marshal. It meant he’d chosen not to let my presence be a straightforward challenge to the four men beside me.
“Got some coffe on?” I asked.
He nodded and stepped away to get me a cup.
“Gentlemen,” I said to the four men just down the bar. They didn’t seem too worked up at the sight of my badge, and I decided there was no sense in making this a long waltz. “I hear Old Charlie’s got a burr under his saddle.”
“The gray-haired drunk?” the closest one said. He appeared to be rangy, but that was only guess because he was sitting. Couple days dark growth smudged his square face. “Promised he’d return with a shotgun. Seems he ain’t heard the war between the states is long over.”
“It’s caused him more than a few rough nights,” I said. With Charlie, it was predictable. A happy glow, then later, in the jail cell as he began to sober, he’d come down some and let the memories work him over. “Lost his wife and both his boys in Kansas to reb soldiers.”
“He so informed us,” the next one down said. His face held the same squareness as the first one’s. “Town of Lawrence. Once we heard that, he didn’t need to tell us more.”
Nor me, the first time Old Charlie had broke down and sobbed in the jail cell. During the Civil War, a band of rebel guerillas known as Quantrill’s Raiders, numbering four hundred and fifty, had burned the town to the ground, slaughtering a hundred and fifty men, women and children to do it. Old Charlie, who been out on a hunting expedition, hadn’t forgiven himself for not being there to die with his family. Knowing all this had made it easier for me to forgive the sleep I’d lost because of Old Charlie’s habits with the bottle.
“You understand then,” I said.
“He threw more than one insult our way, and we didn’t shoot him.” That from the third man down, who didn’t turn his head to speak to me. “I reckon that’s understanding enough.”
“Safe to assume then you didn’t ride for Quantrill?”
“Marshal, push on that accusation and you’re in dangerous territory,” the second one said. “What William Clarke and his boys done was shameful. What we done for the South was duty, plain and simple, fighting other soliders.”
“That does set my mind at ease,” I told him.
The bar stool farthest down scraped as the fourth stood. He stepped away from the stool to face me. His jacket, the only one not Confederate gray, was tucked back to give him a clear path to his holster. His hand was poised above his revolver.
“Iffen that didn’t ease your mind, Marshal,” he challenged, “you figured on playing hero?”
Hero came out like heee-ro. All of them had southern accents.
I pushed myself away from the bar. Slow and easy.
“Josh, git yourself down,” the man closest me growled. “This marshal didn’t come looking for trouble.”
Josh, barely twenty, ignored the older man. I could see in the boy’s eyes a light of courage that whiskey will bring.
“Is that it, Marshal?” Josh repeated. “You think
ing of moving us on?”
I shook my head. “Old Charlie’s a good man, sober or drunk. Sets my mind at ease to know I won’t be doing him wrong when I take away his shotgun.”
“We don’t need your help,” Josh said.
I snorted. “Four of you? And sober? Against one old man in his cups? I’d say you don’t need help. And I’m guessing you’re all men enough not to have to prove it.”
Josh wavered as he pondered that. Especially since none of his older companions disagreed with me, but remained sitting, faces straight ahead, expressions lost in the shadows of the brims of their hats.
“Fact is,” I continued. “Old Charlie’s the one that needs help if he makes it this far with a shotgun.”
The man closest to Josh reached back without looking, and pulled Josh back onto his stool.
That took a little strain off my ribs, holding my breath as I was.
I spoke to the bartender. “George, get these boys another round. Leave a whiskey for me too. It’ll give me excuse to return after I speak to Charlie.”
I only made it halfway to the saloon doors before Old Charlie stumbled inside, his shapeless hat flopping at the brim.
Suzanne had been wrong. He was able to get the working end of the shotgun in first.
I stopped, remained between him and the men at the saloon bar.
He lurched forward, shotgun leveled waist-high. Both his hands were clenched hard. One to the stock. One to the barrel. That alone would have got him killed. His fingers were too far away from the trigger, his hands too tight to move quickly.
“Lay the gun aside, Charlie,” I said in a voice I’d use on a spooked horse.
I watched his hands and prayed he would not reach for the trigger.
“They’re rebs, Marshal. It’s plain to see.” Anger had sobered him somewhat. “I hate rebs. Alice died hard. So’d the boys.”
“It wasn’t them, Charlie. Lay the gun aside.”
He jerked the shotgun up and down in threat. “Marshal, I’ll go through you if I have too.”
“Who’d sing along with you those nights you spend in jail?”
He shook his head. “I’ll be dead anyway. But I’m taking as many of them with me as I can. Alice was burned to death, Marshal. Look at their gray uniforms.”
“I told you, Charlie, it wasn’t them.”
He shook his head again and took another step forward. “They’s lying dogs.”
“No Charlie, Quantrill’s boys would’ve been shooting long before. Let this one rest.”
I became conscious that a crowd had gathered on the street outside of the saloon. A few of the braver people stood on the sidewalk, peering in through the windows. Obviously Old Charlie had made his intentions clear as he marched to his shack and back to here.
My focus returned to Old Charlie as he raised the shotgun to his shoulder. His forward hand started sliding back toward the trigger.
I heard the stools move as the men stood behind me.
“This is between me and Charlie,” I said loudly without taking my eyes off Old Charlie. I was not being noble or protective. These men could take care of themselves. I’m not even sure I was worried about Old Charlie. What I did know was that I had no urge to be caught in a crossfire — shotgun on one side, four revolvers on the other. “You boys relax.”
“Marshal, you best stand aside,” Old Charlie said. “They’s waitin’. And I’m ready.”
I stared at Old Charlie. “Can’t move aside. These men deserve protection of the law, same as everyone else in Laramie.”
I didn’t add that I was rapidly becoming more certain of the stupidity of having accepted a marshal’s badge. And even more certain of the stupidity of pride that kept me from walking away from the job at times like this.
Old Charlie slid his hand another inch closer to the trigger.
“Aw, Charlie, don’t make it tough on us both.”
“Both my boys gone, Marshal. They’d be your age now.”
It did not seem appropriate to mention that yet another wrong wouldn’t make anything right.
I had maybe five seconds to decide if Old Charlie in his cold drunkeness was bluffing me. And if I decided it wasn’t a bluff, then I’d need to choose whether I’d shoot Old Charlie to save my life, knowing that even if I tried to only wing him, the scatter effect of my peppershot cartridges at this close range would shred his flesh into rags.
The saloon doors creaked open. Old Charlie heard it too, and his trigger hand hesitated. I dared flick a glance past Old Charlie’s shoulder, and I saw a slender silouhette. A woman had stepped through the crowd into the Red Rose.
I shifted my eyes back to Old Charlie and his fingers so close to the shotgun’s trigger guard.
“Ma’am,” I said without looking at the woman who had just walked in, “perhaps you’ll return later.”
The woman ignored me and advanced toward us. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught that her hair was blond and thick. But that was all the attention I was willing to give her, not with Old Charlie’s trigger finger only inches from my death.
“Ma’am,” I said, with little patience, “you may notice we’re at a delicate point in our discussion.”
She stepped between me and Old Charlie, keeping her back to me. Over her shoulder, I saw Old Charlie’s jaw drop in amazement.
“You don’t appear to be a man so low you actually mean it,” she told Charlie as she reached for the barrel of the shotgun, which was pointed directly at her face, “Marching down the street waving that gun and swearing to kill four strangers.”
She slowly pushed the barrel sideways. Old Charlie didn’t even hesitate, He extended the shotgun to her without a word, almost as if it was an offering.
“Ma’am,” he said reverently. He removed his hat with one hand and slicked back his greasy hair with the other. Whatever her response, it must have been enjoyable, for he grinned like a dazed mule.
“You go talk to my men now. See to it that you let them buy you a drink,” she told him as she handed him back the shotgun. “You’ll see soon enough it doesn’t matter they fought for Lee.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Old Charlie bowed his head as he shuffled around her toward the bar. Without the lure of blood, the crowd outside began to disperse.
I too felt like a mule that’d just been whopped between the eyes. How’d she manage to…
She turned to face me. That took all the mystery out of why Old Charlie had buckled. Honey always did work better than vinegar.
This woman had eyes the blue of a mountain lake. Against the luxurious blond of her thick, swept-back hair, those eyes were startlingly wide and innocent, as if you had just kissed her and she’d been surprised to find how much she liked it. Her lips had that look too, the pout of a woman ready to enjoy another kiss, and her teeth gleamed white with shininess, as if she had just moistened them in promise of what the next kiss could be.
After the shock of the seductive force of those eyes, a flawless complexion was unnecessary, but it was there. Along with perfect symmetry of cheekbones and delicate nose and chin.
She wore a black shirt. Her jeans were black too, unusual in two regards — because women rarely wore pants, and somewhere, she had dyed the jeans or had them dyed. The overall picture was stunning, and she managed to stand in a way that suggested innocence, yet was more provacative than the crudest pose of any of the women in the saloon paintings around us.
She smiled as she noted my observation of her, and the smile matched the devilish arch of her eyebrows
“Marshal Keaton, I believe,” she said. Her voice was honey, and she let her tongue work over the words in a Southern drawl that hinted at smouldering, hot, Georgia summer nights. “That’s what folks were saying on the sidewalk.”
I tipped my hat. Were we on the street, I’d have removed it. But this was a saloon. And I’m stubborn about wagging my tail when expected.
She extended her hand. “Dehlia Christopher.”
I wasn
’t sure whether she wanted me to kiss the back of her hand or to shake it. I chose to shake it. Her grip was firm and cool.
“Dee-lee-a,” I said, pronouncing it as she had, “Samuel Keaton. I appreciate your help with Charlie.”
“Sometimes a woman’s touch can make considerable difference in…” She smiled in triumph. “…delicate points of a discussion.”
“I just finished offering thanks. You want it again? Or in writing?”
Her eyes narrowed as she reconsidered me. “Perhaps instead you might buy me a beer.”
I did; she was an intriguing mix of Southern belle and forthright woman.
That’s how I found myself a few minutes later, sitting at a table, watching this woman gulp with enjoyment the first half of her mug of beer. When she set the glass down on the green cloth of the table, she had no need to wipe her mouth. She’d drunk without spilling across her lips.
“You mentioned your men at the bar,” I said. “But I don’t see enough dust on you to figure you’re leading a herd over trail.”
“Is that curiousity, Marshal Keaton?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Does it pain you to have to admit curiousity in me?” She smiled like a man holding four aces.
I gave her a neutral smile in return. “Hardly. The curiousity is a professional need. This town pays me to keep it clear of trouble. And your men ain’t dressed in Sunday-go-to-meeting attire.”
Her eyes narrowed again. I understood this to mean she was accustomed to plenty of tail wagging. Which made me that much more determined to not to give her the reaction she expected.
Not that it was difficult to react. Her face was remarkable in its beauty, and the slim necklace that glittered at her throat could hardly compete for attention.
Throat.
It hit me.
The rancher’s dead body in the bank vault. And Harper’s suit jacket, so small on the other dead body.
Silver Moon Page 6
